Intention of marriage document for Barbara Schweickart who married George Hornberger

While I was working on the blog post about Barbara Schweickart Hornberger Unger, I did a bit of googling.  Some of what I found is included in blog post dated September 6, 2014.  But the story that I am going to tell in this blog post is so much fun that it deserves a blog post of its own!  John Schweickart had included a church obit for his ancestor, Frederick Schweickart in John's book about his Schweickart family.  In this obituary it says that Frederick Schweickart was born Dec 13 1832 in Lembach, Canton Weissembourg.....Frederick is the proven brother of my ancestress, Barbara Schweickart Hornberger Unger.

So my googling was to figure out just exactly where Lembach was located.  As I stated in the Sept 6 post, I found a thread on the Alsace Lorraine roots web mail list archives explaining just what I needed.  When I subscribed to the mail list and wrote to the researchers who had been chatting about Lembach back in 1999, I received wonderful help.  But the absolutely most wonderful information came from Ludwig Feist.  Ludwig has been using primary documents for his research that can be found on-line for the area in which Lembach is found.   Ludwig has been so generous with his time in helping me to obtain documents that I never expected to find without hiring a German/French professional or making a trip to the area myself.

Here are Ludwig's instructions to find the documents for oneself:

to get to records

http://etat-civil.bas-rhin.fr/adeloch/index.php

check the box at bottom of above page

click on Accéder à la version graphique

takes you to a page with white box above the alphabet

choose L and Lembach from page that pops up

with 1830's timefraame being area you are interested check boxes at right  are

Births

Marriages

Deaths

Choose one and hit reserche below alphabet

page through till you find year of records you wish to view

most years have an index on first or last pages

Center area of page with alphabet is check box to explore decennial indexes which are basicly 10 year indexes of records on right.

And below is the first very important document that Ludwig sent to me:  I think that I understand this correctly.  This is NOT a marriage certificate for George Hornberger and Barbara Schweickart.  This is an intention of marriage between the two people.  It was required that each file such a document in their own town.  Ludwig has explained to me that the couple actually married in George's place of residence and that the marriage document is there.

Ludwig tells me that this certificate comes from the 1863 Lembach Marriage Acts Book and his explanation is as follows:

I believe she is your Barbara due to attached image which comes from 1863 Lembach marriage acts book. Under french law up to 1870's bride and groom were required to register their intent to marry with their towns records office.

Barbe born 1831 to Frederic Schweickart  (deceased at time of record) and Dorothee Koehlhoffer registered her intent to marry Georges Hornberger of Obersteinbach, Bas-Rhin, France.

[Ludwig explained: on the line where it mentions her father he is denoted as Feu (deceased)
her mother was alive living in Lembach and consented to the marriage from details after her name.]
The actual marriage occurred 2 Feb 1863 in Obersteinbach

Georges Hornberger and Barbe also had a child named Frederic born Aug 22 1865 in Obersteinbach.

So where is Obersteinbach?  

Note that it is a wide place in the road and that it is not far from Lembach  Also note how close it is to the German/France border.  There are some wonderful photos of the town on the internet.  I chose one.  Hopefully one of these days I can put photos of my own on this site.

And I can't stop for the night without putting a hint for a place to stay when I visit

 and